Following a series of crisis talks this weekend, a deal has been signed between the three conservative political parties that together form the current ruling government coalition in Poland.
The leaders of the United Right coalition – Law and Justice chief Jarosław Kaczyński, the Porozumienie (Agreement) party’s Jarosław Gowin, and Solidarity Poland’s Zbigniew Ziobro – signed the new deal on Saturday, according to details released by PAP, the Polish state news agency.
While the leaders of the coalition have not yet disclosed any of the agreement’s details, senior lawmakers have hinted that PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński will be joining the ruling government, potentially as Deputy Prime Minister.
Tensions between the three ruling parties spilled over after the junior partners in the coalition last week refused to support an animal rights bill strongly backed by Kaczyński. Without lawmakers from its two junior coalition partners, Law and Justice would not have a majority in Poland’s lower house, which could have resulted in a minority government or early elections.
Source: Radio Poland, Radio Gdańsk
Navalny thanks 'unknown friends’ for saving his life
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has said he owes his life to the pilots who made an emergency landing when he collapsed on a flight last month, and the paramedics he said diagnosed toxic poisoning and injected him with atropine.
Navalny thanked his “unknown good friends” in the latest in a series of Instagram posts charting his gradual recovery from the poisoning, which German, French and Swedish laboratories have established was carried out with a nerve agent. The Russian government continues to deny poisoning Navalny and has said it has found no evidence to support this claim.
In his Instagram post, the 44-year-old Navalny thanked the pilots for diverting the plane to Omsk despite a bomb warning at the airport, and the medical officers who “did not say any lies about diabetes, etc.” and immediately treated him for toxic poisoning, a decision medical experts have said probably saved his life.
Navalny was discharged from a Berlin hospital earlier this week and has said he will undertake daily physiotherapy.
Source: Radio Poland
Auschwitz Museum director requests pardon for Nigerian youth
The director of Poland’s Auschwitz Memorial museum has offered to serve part of the 10-year jail sentence given to a 13-year-old boy convicted of blasphemy in Nigeria.
In a letter tweeted by the museum this week, museum director Piotr Cywiński asked Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to pardon the boy, who was accused of blasphemy during a dispute with a friend and sentenced last month by an Islamic court in Nigeria’s northern Kano region.
As the head of a memorial to Auschwitz, a place “where children were imprisoned and murdered,” Cywiński wrote that he “cannot remain indifferent to this disgraceful sentence for humanity.” He went on to add that if a pardon was not possible, he and 119 other volunteers would share the boy’s punishment and each spend a month in a Nigerian jail.
According to Reuters, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and other human rights’ groups have declared the sentence to be “wrong” and in violation of international accords. President Buhari has not yet commented on the international condemnation or Cywiński’s appeal.
Source: Radio Poland, Reuters
Film festival in Gdynia celebrates Poland’s anti-communist resistance
Today wraps up the 12th “Defiant, Unvanquished, Enduring” Film Festival in Gdynia, an annual event inspired by Poland’s struggle for freedom from 1939 to 1989.
Twenty-six documentaries have been entered in the festival’s main competition and are vying for the top “Golden Resistor” award. The festival also includes screenings of feature films from various countries as well as exhibitions, panel discussions, book launches and meetings with eyewitnesses of historical events.
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, audience participation has been limited and organizers are instead broadcasting much of the festival online. To view films in this year’s competition or watch other festival events online, visit https://festiwalnnw.pl/ or send an email to akredytacje@festiwalnnw.pl to receive an access code.
Weather
Today will be partly cloudy with some intermittent rain showers and a strong breeze coming in from the east. Temperatures will be a bit cooler than yesterday, with a high of 20°C (68°F) and an overnight low of 7°C (45°F). Temperatures will remain on the cool side throughout the week, with some additional sunshine expected for tomorrow.
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